Composer Gennady Gladkov has died. Obituary

Russian composer Gennady Gladkov has died at the age of 88. In 2014, he suffered a stroke and after that suffered, in his words, from “a whole bunch of diseases inherent in older people.” Nevertheless, Gladkov continued to work actively until recently and even took a small synthesizer with him to the hospital.

According to Gennady Gladkov, he was practically born to the sounds of jazz. This happened in the center of Moscow, in the Grauerman maternity hospital, and his father Igor Gladkov, who worked as a pianist and accordionist in the Alexander Tsfasman ensemble, arrived to pick up the newborn, and staged a small concert in the lobby. According to the recollections of Gladkov’s mother, little Gena did not scream only when jazz was playing. His grandfather was an accompanist for singer Lydia Ruslanova and collected folk songs for her repertoire. Gladkov’s uncle was a professional drummer, and his grandmother loved to sing Ukrainian songs at family holidays. Gladkov’s melodic talent and jazz rhythmic sense come from his childhood.

Gennady Gladkov began his musical education during the war years at the Academic Music School at the Moscow Conservatory. His father, who often toured with front-line musical brigades, strongly supported his son’s musical aspirations. All the more surprising is the fact that in his youth Gladkov became interested in chemistry, was educated at a chemical polytechnic school and even managed to work at a factory before he finally returned to music: in 1959 he graduated from college, in 1964 from the conservatory in composition, and in 1966 -m – graduate school.

In the 1960s, Gennady Gladkov combined his studies with composing music and teaching.

Even when his first works had already been written (music for the Sovremennik play “Childhood Friend” and for the film “Secrets of the Past”) and his first record “The Wizard of the Emerald City” (1965) with the voices of Rostislav Plyatt and Anatoly Papanov was released, he continued teach.

Gennady Gladkov’s first “hits” are associated with his childhood friend Vasily Livanov. Gladkov wrote the music for his graduation performance “Three Fat Men” and for the first cartoon “The Most, The Most, The Most, The Most.” Livanov, together with the poet Yuri Entin, came up with the libretto for the fairy tale “The Town Musicians of Bremen,” which was taken on by director Inessa Kovalevskaya and composer Gennady Gladkov. By the way, the images of the characters were also invented by Vasily Livanov, who, in addition to theater and cinematography, also had an artistic education.

This multi-talented team created perhaps the most popular fairy tale in the entire history of Russian screen arts, and at the same time the most popular musical. 1969 was the year of Woodstock, Led Zeppelin and the last Beatles album. By that time, Gennady Gladkov not only knew The Beatles well, he, on some metaphysical level, accepted the rock and roll vibrations that permeated the atmosphere of that time, and implemented them in the USSR – in the children’s genre. For the sequel “In the Footsteps of the Bremen Town Musicians,” released in 1973, he composed “Troubadour Serenade” (“Ray of the Golden Sun”), perhaps the best song ever written in Russian. It was recorded by Muslim Magomayev.

“A ray of golden sun” remains a staple regarding which there was and is no disagreement. The Melodiya record “The Bremen Town Musicians” was in every family and sold 28 million copies. The plot and melodies of the fairy tale have been used more than once in theater and cinema. In 2022, it was announced that a new film version of The Town Musicians of Bremen will be filmed, which also uses musical themes by Gennady Gladkov. The premiere is scheduled for January 1, 2024.

If you look through the catalog of the hypothetical “golden fund” of Russian animation, it turns out that the list of Gladkov’s best works in this genre coincides with it to a very impressive extent.

“Baby and Carlson”, “How the Lion Cub and the Turtle Sang a Song”, “Blue Puppy”, “38 Parrots”, “Very Blue Beard” – Gennady Gladkov wrote music for these and many other cartoons.

Since the late 1960s, Gladkov began collaborating with director Mark Zakharov, and their first joint performance transferred to television, “Awake and Sing” by the Satire Theater, gave the country a super hit of the same name. Later Gladkov and Zakharov collaborated at Lenkom. If in Broadway musicals the performers were primarily professional singers, and only then actors, then in the performances of Lensoveta and Lenkom, for which Gennady Gladkov wrote the music, dramatic actors sang.

The film music of Gennady Gladkov is a whole universe. Only in alliance with Mark Zakharov did the soundtracks for “12 Chairs”, “An Ordinary Miracle”, “The House That Swift Built”, “Formula of Love” and “Kill the Dragon” appear. Gladkov also created music for the films “Gentlemen of Fortune”, “New Year’s Adventures of Masha and Vitya”, “Dog in the Manger”, “Matchmaking of a Hussar”, “The Man from the Boulevard des Capuchins” and many others.

Gladkov was equally strong both in a short song and in creating large orchestral themes for voice-over accompaniment.

He even sang himself – in “Bremenskie” and in “Formula of Love”. It seems that all musical and performing forms were subject to his control. Even in his symphonic works one could hear circus, street, and farce motifs, well known from the most famous cinematic and theatrical works of Gennady Gladkov. Those motives that make him similar to Nino Rota, Dominic Frontier and Kurt Weill.

In 1983 at the Moscow Musical Theater named after. K. S. Stanislavsky and V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko hosted the premiere of Gladkov’s first opera “The Elder Son” based on the play by Alexander Vampilov. He also wrote ballet scores (“The Return of Odysseus” and “Viy”), as well as a suite for symphony orchestra “Kaleidoscope”. Gladnovsky music appeared on “serious” platforms from time to time—for example, during the heyday of his conducting activities in Moscow, Vladimir Yurovsky included it in his philharmonic programs. And yet, in general, Gladkov’s works in “high genres” were known to the viewer much less than mass-available works from cinema and cartoon stories. “Frivolous” cartoons and musical films conveyed his talent to the widest audience.

“The singing of the Bremen musicians seemed too impudent to Soviet officials,” said Gladkov. “The director and I reassured them: “Well, what are you talking about, these songs are performed by a donkey. Is it possible to take him seriously?”

At first glance, chemistry was an unnecessary link in the bright biography of Gennady Gladkov. But it was precisely the ability to mix funny and tragic, rock and children’s songs, folk and jazz in the right proportions that created an invariably positive reaction from listeners and strengthened their belief that the sun would definitely rise.

Boris Barabanov